tonight on "nightline," wildfire. an incredible faceoff today at a florida school board meeting. we'll show you what happened when a man came in with a bitter complaint -- >> this isn't worth it. >> and a loaded gun. >> please don't. the houston cocktail. it's the new prescription drug mix that is killing hundreds. and we go undercover to expose the dealers and the system that enabled them in a "nightline" investigation. and, leaking. the wikileaks leader, julian assange, comes under fire from his own colleagues who question

his handling of the site's money and accuse him of creating his own cult of personality. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," december 14th, 2010. >> good evening, i'm bill weir. the beginning of this story seems tragically familiar. and angry man interrupted a school board meeting in panama city, florida, today, blaming them for firing his wife and leveled a handgun. he said he planned to die and

>> reporter: this woman, a

>> but why? please -- >> we have reports that mike jones, the officer in the back of the room, was taken to the hospital with chest pains but is okay. a lot of heros in that room. be sure to watch "good morning america" tomorrow morning for tlatest on the story. and we turn now to another disturbing story of illicit drug use and the emergence of a prescription cocktail that's taken hundreds of lives in texas. the trend is abetted by so-called pill mills, pain

easi houston these days? chris cuomo goes undercover as "nightline" investigates. >> reporter: houston is in a battle against rogue medical clinics known as pill mills. >> you get a doctor off craigslist and you're ready to go. >> reporter: millions of black market pills hitting the streets, packaged up and sold in the suburbs, with deadly consequences. in the houston area alone, there have been more than 1,200 fatal prescription drug overdoses in just the past three years. 25-year-old chris scarborough died in his sleep in the home he shared with his parents outside the city. >> he was nothing to these doctors but money. nothing. >> reporter: for years, chris battled addiction to prescription drugs. he had been in rehab three times. shortly before he died, he went to a pain clinic where he was prescribed a trio of drugs known

on the treatments as the houston cocktail, which can produce a heroin-like high. >> our son was given 120 hydrocodone or vicodin mixed with 120 soma muscle relaxers and 120 xanax. >> people are dying from what they're doing and they have no conscience about it at all. >> reporter: john kowall is one of a squad of houston officers now devoted full-time to bringing down pill mills. and there's a big emphasis on moving product? >> correct. the more patients the more money you can make in a day. >> reporter: to see how easy it is -- >> and what are you being seen for today? >> my leg. >> reporter: abc news launched a hidden camera investigation of houston pain clinics, with alarming results. >> how did it go? >> beautiful. >> did it work? >> yeah, it worked. >> reporter: this is an insider's view of a well organized routine that gets going each weekday just after sunrise. groups of homeless men gather,

looking for some easy cash. our guide is this homeless man, who agreed to cooperate with our investigation but asked we conceal his face and change his name. so we'll call him bill. >> one of the recruiters and say, you, you, you. >> reporter: the job in going to several clip nics and posing as patient in pain. bill estimates he's gone on these runs about 75 times. he turns the drugs over to the recruiter and pockets about $20 for each prescription. >> everybody knows this stuff is illegal. but they doing it because easy pay, easy money. >> reporter: and in these homeless men, the recruiters are delivering to the pill mills a steady stream of willing conspirators. >> so, you always have a continuous supply of patients that you can use over and over again. >> reporter: and now they take those drugs and they go to the secondary market? >> right. they package them up in bulk

quantity. the more you buy, the chemoer they are. >> reporter: authorities say there are at least 150 pill mills operating in the city, where people can readily get prescriptions for the powerful drugs dealers desire. >> you sign a one-year lease on some building, you throw in folding chairs there. >> reporter: and just like the movie says, if you build it, they will come. >> exactly. >> reporter: along with bill, we sent four other people into various pain clinics around the city. bill went to a clinic he had been in once before, this time, with a hidden camera. >> let me see your i.d. it's going to be $90. >> bill meets briefly with a nurse and complains of back pain. he walks out with a prescription for 120 loriset painkillers. >> i didn't have to see a doctor. all i did was sit in a chair. >> did you ask for the drugs? >> they already had what i wanted written down. >> reporter: we sent another man to the same clinic. >> it will shoot from my feet

from my ankle to my leg. >> reporter: our patient see as nurse, but never the clinic's doctor. >> and you should be concerned, okay, because your blood pressure will kill you on the spot, like a gunshot wound. >> reporter: he, too, gets a prescription for 120 powerful painkillers, plus 90 of the muscle relaxant soma. >> you got the prescription? >> yep. >> reporter: our patient paid over $200 cash for the drugs at a pharmacy, referred by the pain clin clini clinic. >> you only get the prescription. >> reporter: abc news turned the medication we acquired over to the police. we contacted the nurse who told us this was not a game to him. he was trying to help the patient with his pain and high blood pressure . so, then, i tried to get drugs myself at another clinic. how do you like? would you give me hundreds of pain kills? >> hi, can i help you?

>> reporter: i filled out a medical history form saying i had head, neck and back pain. the receptionist eager. >> you have to make your story really good, in order for him to give you xanax. >> i got you. >> reporter: it was clear, i wasn't the only one here looking for pain pills. >> just trying to get some pain pills. >> yep, ain't we all. ain't we all. >> reporter: i never see a doctor in the office. a physician's assistant, seems curious about my medical history and my being from out of state. still, within minutes -- >> all right, christopher. we can give you some lorcets, you know, a few of them until you get by. >> reporter: lorset is a powerful pain-killing narcotic which has a street value of about $4 a pill. mine was one of five prescriptions we were able to get. in just a few hours time.

a couple of days later, we paid a return visit to the clinic that had written prescriptions for two of our undercover patients. hello, i'm chris cuomo from abc news. i hear that this is the place to come to get lots of pain medicine. we had guys come in here and they got lots of pain medicine. one of them was homeless. and then he wound up giving it to, you know, they give them to people who sell them other places. >> they need to be in prison. they need to go in jail. and the minute that we find something like that, we immediately discharge them and we report them. >> reporter: so, you are saying you are caught unaware by this? >> absolutely, of course. >> reporter: you had no idea that homeless people are doing that? you had no clue about that? >> sir. of course. do you -- you know what -- okay, i see that this is probably a game to you. >> reporter: it's not a game to you. we sent them -- >> this interview is over with.

>> reporter: you know they're giving drugs out, though. the drugs just start here. we found it's pretty easy to get pain pills in houston. are you surprised? >> no. >> reporter: mari robinson is the executive director of the texas medical board. >> this is crime. it not health care. >> reporter: if they are so obvious, why isn't it an easy accountability situation where you just yank the lie sencenses? why isn't it happening? >> it is starting to happen right now. >> reporter: armed with a new state law, authorities are beginning to crack down. >> what we're hoping will occur is that once these things start to fall like dom knows, these clinics will shut down in this state. >> reporter: that can't happen soon enough for esther and ken scarborough. they sued the doctor who prescribed the drugs that ended their son's life, and they formed an organization to ed educate other families about the risks. >> there's no pain in the world that can compare with watching

the funeral directors close the casket on your child. >> reporter: for "nightline," this is chris cuomo in houston. >> and the clinic that homeless men visited said this statement, denying it improperly prescribes medication. quote, we are completely against pill mills and are working very hard to be a successful general medicine practice. thanks to chris cuomo for that. when we come back, wikileaks has spark odd official outrage, [scraping] [piano keys banging] [scraping] [horns honking] with deposits in yur engine,, it can feel like something's holdin your car back. let me guess, 16. [laughing] yeeah. that' why ther's castrol gtx... with our most powerful

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ever since wikileaks released a video in march of a u.s. air strike on two reuters employees in baghdad, the site has gained in both fame and infamy, which according to startling new accusations is exactly what founder julian assange always wanted. brian ross is here with the details. brian? >> reporter: bill, when he gets out of that british prison, assange will have to deal with what has been a mutiny in the wikileaks ranked. several of his one-time colleagues are now coming forward tonight, here on "nightline," to raise questions about what's happened to the group's money and to criticize the way they say assange has turned the website into a cult of personality. >> my name is daniel schmitt. this is julian assange. >> reporter: they were close colleagues just one year ago. but now, daniel schmitt, whose real name is daniel

domscheit-berg, has split from wikileaks, opening his own site, after raising questions about assange's handling of his money and new-found celebrity status. he tald with me via berlin. >> he certainly is different today from the way that i met him. >> when we were putting this together, daniel and i -- >> reporter: he began working with assange in 2007, when the young australian was little known outside the world of hackers. but the release of previously secret pentagon tapes and state department cables put wikileaks on the map. and, in short order, assange became the public face of the website, seen in a new sweden documentary, primping for his television appearances with a new hair style almost every week. at one point, a fan calls him an angel. >> you are an angel. >> me? >> yes. >> an angel? >> reporter: assange is now a candidate for "time" person of the year and well known enough to be a subject of a "saturday

night live" skit. >> hello again. it's me, julian assange. i've taken over your airwaves from inside a british prison. >> reporter: behind the scenes, former colleagues say the real assange was little different and began to act like a dictator with his colleagues. >> it's either his way or the highway. >> reporter: ironically, he says assange became enranged over leaks about him, that he thought were coming from inside wikileaks. was this you, assange wrote in an online chat to domscheit-berg. i didn't speak to "newsweek" or other media, he responds. assange replied, are you refusing to answer? he >> he's not the best person to deal with criticism, i would say. >> reporter: the exchange ended with, you behave like some kind of emperor or slave trader. assange -- you are suspended for one month, effective immediately. >> for being disloyal to the organization and, as he called

it, insubordinate. >> reporter: others who have split with assange say his ego has gone out of control, including this man of iceland, who was part of the group's security team. >> his specific words were, i am the heart and soul of this organization. if you have a problem with me, you can piss off. >> reporter: the most serious issues is the secrecy surrounding the group's money. where it comes from and where it goes. >> i'd like to know myself what has been happening behind the curtains. >> reporter: another of wikileaks early founders say assange's goal from the beginning was to make a lot of money and seek personal fame. >> he loves to provoke people. he loves to make dramatic statements. >> reporter: this man says he was the first person to actually register the wikileaks name. he has his own website that publishes government secrets from around the world. he says assange had always hoped to be put behind bars as a way to further establish his fame, like a marketing tool. >> he loves to be thrown in

jail. he would love to have a trial. >> reporter: but former wikileaks members say the person being lost in all of this is bradley manning, accused of providing secret u.s. documents to wikileaks. assange's critics want to know what happened to the some $50,000 that wikileaks pledged to give to private manning's defense fund? >> i can only say, we pressured for that money to be transferred for quiet awhile. >> reporter: and did he ever tell you why the money had not been transferred? >> no, he did not comment on that. >> reporter: what does that say to you? >> well, to me, it said that it is time to leave this organization because it's note heading in a healthy direction. >> reporter: as of this weekend, the private manning defense fund said it had yet to receive anything from wikileaks. and a wikileaks spokesperson acknowledged there had been a delay. >> it's irresponsible in a sense for wikileaks to call for people to donate money for the bradley manning defense and not deliver.

>> reporter: birgitta is a member of the parliament in iceland who has worked to establish a safe haven for journalists in this country and was an early backer of wikileaks. after working closely with assange, she told me that she has become deeply disillusioned. >> very many people have forgotten the fact that bradley manning has been sitting in jail for 200 days and his defense fund is struggling to get together the money to pay the lawyers. >> reporter: at the same time, wikileaks is raising money for assange's defense fund. he's facing charges of rape in sweden, a case that he says is meant to silence him and wikileaks. but some of assange's former colleagues say the rape case has nothing to do with wikileaks and that assange should have resigned. >> i don't think that is justifiable, and that's why i did suggest that he would step aside. >> reporter: instead, she and the others have quit wikileaks and are working to set up their own rival website.

a spokesperson for wikileaks said tonight, the former members are people with an agenda and their description of assange is one the spokesperson said he did not recognize. bill? >> brian ross, our thanks to you. and we'll be right back with christmas by the staggering numbers. ♪ [ male announcer ] open up a cadillac during our season's best sales event and receive the gift of asphalt. experience the exhilarating cadillac cts with a direct injection v6.

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with bill weir. >> there is only one list that matters this year. we all know who is checking that one twice. but we thought we would throw together a christmas list of our own, a holiday spirit accounting. so, here's john berman with christmas by the numbers. >> reporter: christmas is the season of giving. and if your true love gave you all the items in "the 12 days of christmas," you would have 316 presents waiting in your stocking. and your true love will have spent nearly $100,000. dashing through the snow and to the stores. 20% of americans won't finish their shopping until christmas eve. 38,000 miles of ribbon are used to wrap up all those presents. enough to tie five giant bows

around the moon. last holiday season, nearly 40 million christmas trees were sold. 30% of them were fake. but if you prefer pine to plastic, start chopping. there are 1 million square acres of christmas trees growing in america's forest. more acorage than the entire state of rhode island. anthem, arizona, is home to the nation's largest christmas tree. standing at 110 feet. the white fir is at least 18 santas tall and is decorated with more than 50,000 lights. and each year, about 11,000 letters addressed to the big man in red arrive to the post office in the town of santa claus, indiana. and, in order to visit all those good little boys and girls on christmas eve, santa and his eight reindeer need to travel 650 miles per second. on dasher and on dancer, indeed. >> the man is quick. thanks to john berman and be sure to check out abcnews.com for more holiday cheer. we'll be back, but here's jimmy

kimmel with what's coming up next. >> jimmy: tonight, kevin spacey, olivia wilde, music from goo goo dolls, and these two people compete in a live [ steve ] i was registering my citi card for the holiday sweepstakes, when i got this toy from my colleague in japan. turns out robosan was the hottest toy of the year. [ news tv ] robosan 4000 is sold out across the country. [ steve ] i was going to sell it online and make a fortune. but then, i won a $1,000 prepaid card just because i used my citi card. so i made a decision,

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